


elegy

by virginianwolfsnake



Category: A Series of Unfortunate Events (TV), A Series of Unfortunate Events - Lemony Snicket
Genre: Gen, I set out to write a nice cheerful fic about SBG at the beach, Pre and Post Canon, nostalgic vibes in the extreme, snicket sibling bickering, that isn't quite what I have produced, warning: this is a bit sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-06
Updated: 2020-07-06
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:40:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25114777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/virginianwolfsnake/pseuds/virginianwolfsnake
Summary: lemony tries not to remember. but he cannot always resist the pull of those warm, golden days.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 23





	elegy

Rosalind’s mother’s house within the castle grounds at Winnipeg had room for all of them on that blissful weekend. The castle and the surrounding area of Winnipeg were charming, but the Duchess was admittedly less so — unlike her daughter, she took herself very seriously indeed, and made no secret of the fact that she didn’t entirely trust half of these associates that Ros had chosen to ally herself with. It had seemed such a silly, paranoid notion in those days that she would glance so coldly at Ernest only for forgetting to use a coaster for his brandy. She had taken quite a fancy to Beatrice, who perhaps could emulate the practiced airs and graces she valued better than the rest of them — besides,  _ nobody _ was immune to Beatrice’s charm — but she spoke so little and played her cards so persistently close to her chest with the rest of them, as though she thought that at any moment one of them might decide to douse the sitting room in kerosene. 

To escape Rowena’s watchful and slightly disapproving eye, the group spent the majority of their time down by the lake. Winnipeg was as beautiful as Ros had promised at this time of year, even late into the afternoon. The sun dipping low in the sky cast a warm golden glow over the water and bathed everyone in a welcoming, warm light. 

While Frank and Ernest sat together at the end of the dock — whispering with their heads together as though they were plotting something, which they often were — Kit had determined that she would use the afternoon for training rather than for relaxation, and was taking great delight in practicing her diving next to them, occasionally splashing Frank as she entered the water. Bertrand, with his indomitable patience, had been assigned to placate Monty, who had read a research paper recently on the wildlife at Winnipeg and was convinced they would be able to find a particular lizard here that he had never seen in real life (Lemony only knew this because he was subjected to the endless conversation about it in the car journey). 

The others, less charmed by the water and patently disinterested in the reptiles, were situated on the grass. Beatrice and Jacques were interested only in soaking in the last rays of the sunshine and were both splayed on Winnipeg-embroidered green towels that seemed altogether too fancy to be used for the purpose, on either side of the two last associates in their party like bookends. And for the final two, there were books; there always were. 

“ _ But just buckle in with a bit of a grin _ ,” Lemony read aloud, ignoring his brother’s murmur of complaint. “ _ Just take off your coat and go to it; just start in to sing as you tackle the thing, that “cannot be done”, and you’ll do it. _ ”

Abruptly, Jacques rose from his supine position on the towel to glare at him. “Why are you doing this to us?” he whined, like a child being pursued by a terrible villain rather than like a grown man being read poetry on a summer afternoon by his sibling. 

“I’m convinced it is in code,” Lemony stated, as though that were the simplest thing in the world. “Or that it serves some other purpose than it seems. Nobody can have written something so nonsensical unless for a reason.”

“It is not nonsensical,” Beatrice contributed, from R’s other side. Lemony was briefly terrifyingly possessed by the thought that she might be about to defend his least favourite poet, until she finished her thought. “It is propaganda. His war poetry at least, but the rest is too — it is an anthem to encourage everyone to be happy with their lot, try as hard as they can and not to complain about it.”

Lemony nodded acceptingly at that, though he still imagined that there must be more to it. It was only when Ros looked up from her own book — something far less irritating, no doubt — to promptly slam shut his own, trapping his index finger in the process, that he was distracted from the topic. 

“ _ Enough _ Edgar Guest for today,” she ordered, in that stern way she no doubt learned from her mother. “Or for a lifetime. If you want to complain about the quality of the poems, do so with Bert rather than with me.”

“Seconded!” Jacques added needlessly. 

“Is this what it’s like at the office?” Beatrice chuckled. 

“Please don’t make me think of Eleanora outside of standard office hours, B.” Ros was so disgusted by this thought that she slid her glasses up into her dark hair so that she could accompany her statement with a rather scornful glance in the direction of the young actress. “This is meant to be a  _ break _ from the City. And for you, Beatrice…” she paused slyly, which left Lemony in no doubt that she intended to be disruptive with her next words. “From your understudy.”

The collective, synchronised groan from all three of her companions set her off laughing. 

“I hope your lips aren’t still sore from the peppermint tea she served you the other day,” Jacques remarked, a hint of laughter creeping into his own tone. “Quite admirable to go on stage anyway that evening, but I have to say, it wasn’t your finest performance.”

“ _ Don’t _ ,” Beatrice groaned, but Lemony could see, over R’s shoulder, that there was the beginning of a suppressed smile on her own lips too. This was just as well, because though he had fussed and been quite attentive at the time, it was more than vaguely amusing to look back on. 

“It was still far better than with Esmé at the helm,” he added kindly. 

“It would’ve been so even if you’d gone into anaphylactic shock,” R joked, in her particular, dry way — and that was the moment the four of them finally did collapse into giggles. This was the time Kit chose to join them, quite purposefully spraying them all with the chilly water from her long braid as she swung it over her shoulder and sat cross-legged opposite her brothers. 

“Speaking of which,” she interjected, evidently having caught the final moments of their conversation before it descended into laughter. Kit never had been one to join a conversation in an ordinary way — she had a way of seeing everything at all times, to the extent Lemony would have predicted she could stroll right up to Ernest and become as much a part of whatever he was saying to his brother as Frank was, without warning and without context. “I still haven’t seen the review published. Have one of you finally locked Geraldine in the supply closet?”

Jacques propped himself up on his elbows to address her. “I only did that once,” he replied, utterly nonplussed. “And you know that silly girl has no interest in good theatre.” 

“I was beginning to wonder if all of you had been fired from the  _ Punctilio _ ,” Kit continued, and the tone of her voice and that sneaky look in her dark eyes tipped Lemony off that her intentions in continuing this conversation had, as usual, not been entirely innocent. “I have seen a significant lack of your  _ delightful  _ fashion articles recently. Has Jerome been keeping you too busy?”

Even Lemony might not have dared make such a comment to Jacques in public, knowing how guarded he was on this subject — but the twins had always been able to do this to each other. There was never, or very rarely, any genuine malice in the needling, but they both had a way of getting directly to the point without worrying too much over the potential to hurt the other’s feelings. Jacques was saved from replying on this occasion — no doubt with one of his own withering put-downs — by R, who leaned over to address him with a gasp. 

“You ought to have brought him!” she cried; ever the hostess. “I have always liked him!”

Beatrice snorted from her other side. “I cannot imagine he would have dealt well with Rowena. It’s probably just as well.”

“You are the only one who can cope with Rowena,” R said dismissively, as if she was not speaking about her own mother. “Jacques, is it too late to telephone him?”

“Yes,” the eldest Snicket growled, laying flat again with his eyes persistently closed as if he could block out the conversation by not looking directly at any of its participants. “I am not cruel enough to subject him to all of you again so soon.”

Kit, who took undisguised delight in his discomfort, was twirling a blade of grass between her fingers and looking sly. “I suppose he did seem quite traumatised by the ball.”

“You make it sound so unreasonable!” Jacques, by then, was genuinely irritated. “He wasn’t expecting there to be a  _ swordfight _ , and I have to say I wasn’t either. Josephine and Georgina should be kept apart, forcibly if necessary.”

Lemony couldn’t be sure at the time whether Jacques’ tendency to become touchy over the subject of Jerome was because he was truly so sensitive about his feelings toward the other man, who he had always managed to keep rather at arms length from their circle, or for some other reason, but he felt his brother’s embarrassment and temper quite strongly. Sometimes, there was only an imperfect way to help. 

“Kit,” he blurted. “When did you say Olaf was due to arrive?”

Another synchronised groan, but this time only from Jacques and R — Beatrice was too polite, and had privately admitted to feeling too guilty for playing matchmaker between them, to make her feelings so clear. “Whenever it is,” R interjected, before his glaring sister had a chance to respond or to drag her younger brother over to the lake to drown him. “I hope you told him not to go into the house. My mother will have a fit.”

“Do you think we can communicate telepathically?” Kit laughed. “Was I to know we would be at the lake at this precise time? I didn’t receive your minute-by-minute schedule to avoid Rowena. Besides, he  _ does _ know how to introduce himself.”

“Loudly,” Jacques remarked, with no shortage of glee. “Theatrically,  _ far _ too regularly, and often with an over-emphasis on the title. I imagine his ability to introduce himself is  _ precisely _ the concern at hand.”

“What is delaying him, anyway?” Ros asked. “I suppose he is having his fifth set of headshots done, as if it is a lack of them rather than his own lack of talent preventing him from securing any parts recently?”

“If you were going to be like this, I wish you would have said.” Kit was undeterred and, from the look in her eyes, apparently unconcerned — she was always deterred or concerned by very little, regardless whether the deterrent was snide comments from her friends, security guards, avalanches or packs of lions. “He laughs at all of you too, you know, when you aren’t around. I won’t feel guilty for joining in next time.”

Without rising from his position, Jacques pressed a hand over his heart dramatically. “I am truly stung.” 

“Truly!” Ros chuckled. “Without Olaf’s approval, I can’t imagine how I will ever sleep soundly again.”

A shadow fell over them at that moment as Bertrand approached from the direction of the soon-setting sun, trailed by Monty and the Denouements. Perhaps an entire afternoon on lizard-watch was too trying even for him, because as soon as he arrived he took a seat heavily and removed his glasses to rub wearily at his eyes. Ernest and Frank, however, looked rather enlivened on their return from the dock, with their matching gait and matching haircuts. Even after so many years Lemony could not reliably tell them apart unless in in-depth conversation — others claimed to have the ability, but it was only Kit he believed legitimately could. 

“Ros,” one of them intoned. “Does this count as sunset?”

Lemony didn’t understand the rationale behind the question, but it made her roll her eyes. She made a show of assessing the angle of the sun, and tilting her head to each side in apparent deliberation, and then rose to her feet to pick up the enormous bag she had carted out with her to the lake and which had rested throughout the afternoon in the shade of the tree behind them. While she did that, the identical brothers shared identical grins, and this all began to make sense when she returned with a surprising number of bottles of red wine, no doubt stolen from her mother’s cellar, and a selection of cups. 

“Close enough,” she declared, to a lively cheer from the rest. 

When Olaf did join them, an hour or so later, the wine had softened their feelings toward him — he was not  _ so _ bad, they had collectively agreed after a glass and a half each and after Beatrice had told them all a story from their apprenticeship that painted him in a flattering light, with a long look at Kit as she finished. There was something still to be said for sticking together. 

“You are spectacularly late,” his sister commented, when he arrived and dove straight for the wine. 

“I was with Rowena,” he had remarked, in his theatrical way, as he poured himself a glass and plonked himself down into the spot beside her. Upon recognising the looks of utter disbelief — and on Ros’ part, horror — he elaborated. “Charming woman; I’ve had a full tour of the house. I hadn’t guessed your father was once in the army, R — it was quite a story she told!”

“Perhaps she’s been at the brandy,” Ros wondered aloud while the others were still in shock, and Kit was laughing and saying that she had told them all so. 

“ _ How _ did you manage that?” Beatrice demanded — with a shade of irritation that Lemony could only imagine arose from the fact that she had not heard that story yet and that her position as the Duchess’s temporary favourite of her daughter’s friends might be under attack. 

Olaf had merely shrugged, though his eyes shone with mirth and his smirk was visible even when obscured by his cup. “I’ve been telling you for years; I am  _ really very _ charming.”

Their laughter had rippled over the lake that night in the warm air, as the light turned blue and they all swatted away mosquitos and listened to the crickets, and regaled one another with their recent gossip. At some later point in that magnificent night, Beatrice had taken Ros’s place beside him, and the more tired they became the more often the ends of her dark hair brushed his shoulder, until by the end her head was entirely resting against it. 

Winnipeg is different now, not least because the castle and Rowena are long gone. It is almost summer today too, but gone is the golden glow of that day or the ring of their shared laughter around the fire that Bertrand had sparked to life for them as the night grew truly dark — Lemony supposes that perhaps the sepia tone of the recollection is something he has manufactured in his own mind, now that he has seen all the darker shades that the rest of life has had to offer. The lake today is less blue than he remembers, the sun less bright and the grass less green; the whole picture is tainted in a grey overlay, as if the ashes from the ruined castle buildings over the hills have tainted it all forever. How ironic, after all, that Rowena’s suspicions proved posthumously accurate. 

“Do you ever remember that weekend we spent here?” Ros is now singularly R, and she has changed along with Winnipeg, with her new tired eyes and her hair tightly pulled back. He has spent so long in his reverie that he barely recognises her voice now. She has lost that dry humour, replaced by something more desperate from all they have seen. “I remembered recently that we were here for your birthday.”

“I remember it terribly often,” he admits. It is so pleasant to replay the scene of that afternoon that opening his eyes again on what remains feels doubly painful. “I turned twenty. How young, in hindsight.”

His oldest living friend — thinking as much feels like a punch to the gut — regards him with a sad smile. “That was less than a year before I became the Duchess.” She is so desensitised to this fact now that she can say so entirely evenly, as though the untimely death of her mother is only a footnote in the long book detailing all of the terrible things that have happened to them and ways the world has hardened them since that time. “How bizarre to think that I had no idea, at that time, that it was one of the last times I would see my mother.”

Her hand is cold when he covers it with his own, on top of the grey, tired wood of the dock beneath them. He considers kicking off his shoes to test the water, but he cannot find the energy. Visions of Kit, hair wet from the water, and Beatrice’s head on his shoulder in the comforting black of the night are almost unbearable. Nostalgia, he has found, can be so cruel. He wants nothing more than to live forever in that perfectly preserved past, and yet he cannot bear to think of it too long in case it shatters his heart completely, in the knowledge he cannot unlearn about what happened next. 

“Strange, isn’t it,” R is saying, with a faraway, contemplative look. “That we are the only ones left?” 

_ Strange _ hardly seems a strong enough word. Harrowing, agonising, unendurable; Lemony can think of pages and pages of more accurate descriptions, and has written most of them now in his letters to his editor, or simply on napkins of cafés, sometimes carved into desks. Privately, though, he doubts that they are the only ones. He is certain — how he wishes he weren’t — that Kit and Jacques are gone, and Beatrice and Bertrand, Olaf, and Monty too. All over such silly things, in hindsight. 

It is unbearable to think back on those golden days in Winnipeg and to think that Monty and Jacques, at least, have met their ends at the hands of the man they tentatively welcomed that day — the Winnipeg mansion, he believes, succumbed to the same, and nearly, he remembers, the Duchess herself. But the Denouements may still be out there somewhere — though not with their heads pressed together the way they were at the dock on that afternoon, and that is a kind of loss in itself. Besides, it is too convenient to believe that all other tendrils of the organisation that has ultimately destroyed them all have been cut. After all, wicked people do seem to have quite a way of surviving.

  
But they certainly  _ feel _ alone in the world, regardless of how many volunteers and villains remain, and reminding her of the wickedness that seems to live on in the world regardless of how they try to destroy it hardly feels productive. Besides, he doesn’t have the energy. When he looks at R again, her eyes are closed as she faces out over the lake, and she looks almost at peace as she reminisces. If he does the same, he can almost feel the warmth of that golden glow again. 


End file.
